MrSeb writes: "Firefox 9 is now available — but unlike its previous rapid release forebears where not a lot changed, a huge feature has landed with the new version: the JavaScript engine now has type inference enabled. This simple switch has resulted in a 20-30% JS execution speed increase, putting JaegerMonkey back in line with Chrome's V8 engine, and even pulling ahead in some cases. If you switched away from Firefox to IE or Chrome for improved JS performance, now is probably the time to give Firefox another shot."

I installed the latest beta, and all 17 of my extensions worked just fine. Memory seems on a par thus far with 8.0.1 (which means, way better than Chrome, especially now with lazy tab loading). Seems a little bit zippier, but I haven't thrown any heavy js at it. I think the more HTML5 and CSS3 improvements they make, the better, though yeah, the updated js performance is the big feature for this drop.

I switched to Chrome awhile back and JavaScript performance was pretty much none of the reason why I did it. And it certainly isn't going to get me to go back. Chrome is, overall, simply a better user experience. The only thing I currently dislike in Chrome is bookmark management... and it is "ok" enough to not be too worried about.

(There's a strong chance that I won't be able to post this when the story appears on/. due to Christmas preparations. If you agree with the post, please could you post it when it appears, thank you.)

The Firefox team have taken criticism for their decision to inflate version numbers to make them effectively irrelevant (one of their goals is to match Chrome in this regard; though, Chrome's version number is still fequently mentioned). They haven't done this to spite users; rather, it indicates a change in th